🇮🇸 PayAnalytics receives the Icelandic Innovation Award 2023

Press release from Íslandsstofa

Pay equity software to measure and close pay gaps

The Icelandic Innovation Awards 2023 was awarded today to the software company PayAnalytics which has developed pay equity software to enable companies to measure and close pay gaps and keep them closed.

Guðrún Þorgeirsdóttir, founder and Chief Business Development Officer of PayAnalytics, and Garðar Hauksson, founder and Chief Technical Officer, received the award from Áslaug Arna Sigurbjörnsdóttir, Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation at the Icelandic Innovation Congress in Gróska today.

About the Award Winners
PayAnalytics was founded in 2018 with the aim of making it easier for large and small companies to pay fair wages and participate in combating discrimination based on gender, origin, age, sexuality or other factors that should not affect wages.

PayAnalytics emerged from the strong egalitarian environment in Iceland and has a fully formed product at a time when much of the world is moving towards eliminating wage gaps. The software is used to analyse the salaries of 40% of the Icelandic work force and has been widely adopted by small and large companies across Europe and North America. PayAnalytics is used daily in 75 countries to ensure fair wages for over a million employees of  some of the world’s largest and best most respected companies.

Marketing grant from Business Iceland
In connection with the Innovation Award, Business Iceland grants the awarded company a grant of three million ISK for international marketing, in cooperation with Business Sweden.

Guðrún Þorgeirsdóttir said at the award ceremony today: “When the idea of developing a software solution to simplify the use of data and analytics to close pay gaps first emerged, it seemed like a distant dream that within just a few years our tool would become the market leader in both Europe and North America. Winning the Gulleggið in 2016, getting a grant from the Technology Development Fund in 2018, early adoption by forward-thinking Icelandic companies, the investment from the New Business Development Fund in 2020, and subsequent investment from both the New Business Development Fund and Eyrir Vöxtur in 2021—all of these marked pivotal milestones on our journey. We take pride in joining the group of prestigious companies that have received the Icelandic Innovation Award, and we believe that the success of PayAnalytics reflects the importance of a robust Icelandic startup community.”

Jury Justification
PayAnalytics software leads to great social benefits. It allows employers to make non-discriminatory decisions by turning a complex subject into accessible results. The solution is in use by some of the largest companies in the world, but importantly, it is also user-friendly for small and medium-sized companies, as most of the workforce is employed by such companies.

PayAnalytics will continue to carry out important development work beyond the pay equity software, since real equality in pay will not be achieved until all genders and all social groups have the same opportunities regarding positions that are traditionally higher paid. Such equality cannot be achieved only through wage changes, but the composition of the group that gets into higher paid jobs must be changed. PayAnalytics is leading the way towards this goal in the world today and plans to further develop this solution.

PayAnalytics is also a leader in pay gap education and discussion. Its published educational material is available in seven languages in the form of e-books, articles, and podcasts. By making educational material readily accessible the company ensures that more people know that it is possible to reduce and prevent the wage gap.

The Icelandic Innovation Awards
The Icelandic Innovation Awards are awarded annually by Rannís, Business Iceland, the Icelandic Intellectual Property Office and the New Business Venture Fund, to companies that are considered to have excelled in the development of a new products or service, based on research and innovation, and which have achieved success on the market. The purpose of the awards is to draw attention to the important relationship between research, knowledge acquisition and value creation. The prize is a statue of the fertility god Frey by sculptor Hallstein Sigurðsson.

When selecting an award winner, consideration is given to whether a proposed company is a start-up, whether it is based on a new technology and idea and has the knowledge and experience to carry out excellent development work. An assessment is then made of the added value of its products or services and whether the company has been successful in the market. It is assessed whether it is likely that the company will stay the course and whether the management of innovation is exemplary. Finally, it is assessed whether the company represents an incentive for others to follow a similar path.

Originally published on 26 October by Íslandsstofa.

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